Josephine (Josie) Mae Dittrich was born in Kansas City, Missouri on September 22, 1947, grew up in Mission, Kansas, and passed away at the age of 75 on May 7, 2023 at her home on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Everyone agrees that Josie was the most beautiful, graceful, interesting, enthusiastic, generous, talented, humblest and kindest person they'd ever met, and she had the singing voice of an angel. She was an immediate friend and mother to all and knew NO strangers. Her loss leaves a life-changing, shocking void for all who knew her because to know her was to love her, and she was so vibrant that everyone expected her to live until she was at least 95.
Josie graduated from Shawnee Mission North High School in Kansas and attended Oral Roberts University, where she was part of the World Action Singers. She toured as a singer with Bob Hope as well as The Spurrlows, was a performer at Disneyland, and was a USO Showgirl in the Vietnam War, serving in Vietnam and Thailand and earning a Purple Heart. She went on to become the host of an inspirational radio talk show, a chaplaincy hotline counselor, teacher to impoverished children, and Christian-based television producer. Josie was also an expert shopper and wrote a booklet about how to thrift shop to look professional for women recently released from incarceration and seeking employment. Her passion career in the second half of her life was providing humanitarian aid to underserved populations in places such as Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kyrgyzstan, India, and Haiti. She also individually partnered with the Golden Isles Lions Club in Georgia to provide eyeglasses for remote villages in Malawi and personally sponsored the housing and education of several girls there. An unfinished dream of Josie's was to write a children's book about recovering from trauma, namely adapting the book "Hinds' Feet on High Places" for kids. She was also secretly a skilled poet. Although she was an avid world traveler and had visited Italy before, her dream vacation was to Cinque Terre, a trip that was planned for June 2023, just a month after she unexpectedly passed; a lock of her hair is currently floating inside a message in a wine bottle somewhere off the Italian coast, waiting to be found by Josie's next friend, and notes about her are tucked into the ancient walls of the villages.
Even with all of her amazing global accomplishments, Josie's main source of pride and joy was her family: Her four daughters Renee, Michelle, Leanna, and Eva, and grandsons Samuel (Sam), Lucas (Luke), and Wyatt, by whom she was affectionately known as Mom, Moooooom, Josie-Mom, Mama J, Gamma, and lastly Gaga. She married Thomas (Tom) A. Dittrich, Jr. on August 25, 1973 at Waialae Beach Park in Honolulu, Hawaii and they had Renee there. They then moved to Shawnee, Kansas to be near Josie's relatives, including her grandparents Pearl and Alfred Olson, parents Alfreda and Allen Weaver, aunt Olivia (aged like her sister), and younger brothers Lionel (Lonny), Richard (Rick), and Monte. Josie and Tom had their other three daughters and raised the family in Shawnee before separating in 2005 and later divorcing, remaining close friends. Josie moved from Kansas to New York to pursue her humanitarian career before moving south to Saint Simons Island, Georgia in 2007, where she met her boyfriend of over 15 years at the time of her passing, O.S. Ned Gross. Josie never recovered from losing her daughter Michelle in November of 2019, but was sustained by her surviving loved ones, especially her daughters and grandsons, and was rejuvenated by the birth of Wyatt in April 2022.
Josie will be forever and daily missed by all who knew her, most by her daughters and grandkids who she poured her heart into and was adored by, and the two biggest loves of her life, Tom and Ned. She was a wonderful cook (family favorites include spaghetti, tacos, chili, quiche, kielbasa, and mac 'n' cheese), she loved shopping for special gifts and celebrating birthdays and holidays with her family, she was famous for her huge earrings and matching jewelry, and she lived for cappuccinos and croissants in Europe. She gave everyone the benefit of the doubt, endlessly believed in people's ability to overcome, tried to encourage and inspire everyone she met, and devoted herself to being the best mom and grandma she could be. Her life will best be honored by you reading this if you do the following: Prioritize your family above all else, forgive, put energy toward making people feel special and loved, try to see different perspectives when it's the hardest thing for you to do, talk to God, self-reflect, travel outside of your comfort zone, sing, dance, play, read, write, and create, focus on healing yourself and others, and appreciate life- do not take it for granted. Josie would encouragingly tell her daughters in challenging times, "This too shall pass," and she was usually right, but this-- losing her-- will never get easier.
-Written by Eva in December 2023
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